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Judge Parker, 1/31/18

Oh, man, I’ve dropped the ball on keeping you up to date on the doings in Judge Parker, haven’t I? Well, it seems that April busted out of prison with her dad’s help, then came to Randy’s to sweep him and Charlotte off into a life on the run with her, but he didn’t want to go, so she fled without them, after vaguely promising to be reunited with Charlotte, some day. Now we learn that as a result Randy has become a shut-in, refusing to leave his child or his home lest April come spirit her away. Far be it for me to force an emotionally devastated dad to go back to work before he’s ready, but does Randy know that the courthouse is probably the most heavily guarded structure in all of Parkerburg? He could go back to dispensing justice (presumably he’s the town’s only jurist, so suspects have been languishing in jail without trial for months while he works all this out) and Charlotte could coo adorably in the arms of the bailiff. Everybody wins!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/31/18

In keeping with this strip’s new hard-and-fast “no conflict whatsover” rule, I assume this court appearance will go off without a hitch, with Rex and June cementing their hold on little Johnny while his last living blood relatives look on with submissive adoration. But it’d be pretty great if they were just setting things up to snatch Johnny away in the most dramatic way possible, like showing up to object with an incredibly high-powered lawyer at the last minute, or possibly just bursting into the court room with a gang of former Special Forces troops to extract the grandchild from his kidnappers.

Mary Worth, 1/31/18

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is a tragedy, but isn’t centered on the title character, who, like Janet Leigh in Psycho, is stabbed to death about a third of the way through the play. No, the protagonist is Brutus, a decent man whose fatal flaw is that he is all too aware of his own decency, and so he allows himself to believe it when other people convince him that only he can save the Republic, and the only way to do it is to help murder his friend. Mary of course can’t be lured into Ted’s muffin scam by riches or glory — she has a comfortable pension and is the manager of her condo complex, so what more could she want in those departments? But when she’s presented with the fact that currently most of the world’s 7 billion people will live and die without ever getting to enjoy her muffins — well, you can hardly expect her to accept that sad state of affairs, can you?

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Spider-Man, 1/30/18

A lot of the “dramatic” “tension” in this strip arises when MJ or Peter almost accidentally blurt something out that would reveal Peter’s secret identity, and then furiously thought-balloon to themselves that it’s crucial that they not reveal Peter’s secret identity, only to do it again a few days later. Thus I find it pretty hilarious that Bruce’s straight-up slam on Spidey’s Lizard-fighting prowess didn’t prompt a defensive reaction or other giveaway from MJ. “Hey lady, you husband sucks!” [in MJ’s subconscious] Yeah, that checks out, no need to follow up on it or anything.

Also, do you remember Bruce Banner’s beloved catchphrase, “That’s my secret, all the Avengers as a group: I’m always angry!” Well, Newspapaer Spider-Man is here to remind you about it! For more quips like this, check out [consults Wikipedia] Avengers: Infinity War, coming to theaters in … May, probably? Ugh, I’m so tired, guys.

Beetle Bailey, 1/30/18

I’ve come around on this point from where I was a year ago: I now think it’s cool and good that the people behind Beetle Bailey have literally no idea what camouflage is, and apparently think the 21st century U.S. military disguises its soldiers as, like, trees and shit, like they’re going to help Malcom and Macduff take Dunsinane from Macbeth.

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Mark Trail, 1/29/18

Meanwhile, a camping trip is happening not far from Lost Forest, but not, presumably, so close that this cozy domestic scene will soon be disrupted by trained circus beasts or whatever, so I guess this is a new storyline, or a new thread in the ongoing storyline involving bankrupt circuses and Dirty’s plans for revenge and such. The important thing is that this couple is not emotionally prepared for whatever hijinks are about to ensue at them, since they’re clearly hoping for a little R&R — drink beans out of a bucket, hit a log with an axe, that sort of thing. It makes a nice change of pace from the dental lab! I assume that the dental lab in question is where dentists send blood draws and the like for analysis, so it doesn’t even supply the go-go thrills of on actual dental office, where at least you might get to hear a patient try to suppress a scream now and then; but based on their weirdly prominent lines around this lady’s jaw and cheekbones, it might also be a secret laboratory where renegate dentists conduct experimental mouth transplant surgery.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/29/18

Bull’s CTE companion’s “Not in this universe!” rejoinder doesn’t make a ton of sense on its face, but I think the fact that it appears in a panel immediately after a patented Funkyverse photo album flashback is relevant here. After all, while I talk about the Funkyverse all the time, we really know that there are two Funkyverses: the whimsical high-school one that we enjoyed in the ’70s and ’80s, and the much darker one that has emerged over the past two decades. Perhaps some tiny event, as imperceptible as the breeze from a butterfly’s wings but crucial to the nature of reality, caused the original Funkyverse to diverge into two different timelines. In one, the one of joy and happiness, Bull played out his football days and his cartoon skull never felt any ill effects from repeated, cartoonish dings, any more than Wile E. Coyote ever suffered lasting harm from plummeting off a cliff. But that’s not how it works in this universe. Not by a long shot.